Before the first class: what needs the director

Based on real needs. An illustrative workflow with identifying details adapted. Example quotations are labelled; the education story also includes verified early-user feedback.

The business started small, on the founder's phone, and the phone never stopped being the office. Today it carries a staff coordination group, a group per course, an admissions line where parents ask about dates and fees, and a dozen private threads with teachers and coordinators.

A Sunday morning: a physics teacher is sick and two colleagues offered to cover, but nobody confirmed. Three parents asked about the December intake last night and are still waiting. The Wednesday math class moved rooms, and the course group is asking which room. None of it is hard. All of it is scattered, and some of it needs the director before 8:30.

• Admissions questions arrive in the evening and get buried by morning.
• Staffing changes are agreed in one group and confirmed, or not, in another.
• Course groups raise the same question many times when nobody answers it once.
• Voice notes carry half the decisions, and nobody has time to listen to all of them.

Example request to the assistant

"Across the groups I opened, what needs my decision before today's classes?"

An example answer, shortened. The groups, people and messages are invented.

• Admissions, waiting since last night. Two parents asked whether the December intake is still open, one asked about a payment plan. Nobody replied. Source: Admissions, 21:10 and 22:35.
• Staffing for Sunday. Physics, group 3: the teacher is sick, Yael and Omer both offered to cover, nobody confirmed. Source: Staff coordination, 06:50, voice note.
• An unresolved change. Wednesday's math class moved rooms. Four students asked which room; no answer yet. Source: Math, advanced track, yesterday 19:20.

Everything else in the opened groups is informational. Want me to draft a reply to the admissions questions?

Early user feedback. What a director of an education business told us after connecting Circles and using it:

"It works, and then you don't need to fiddle with it anymore."

An early user of Circles, after connecting and using it. Translated from Hebrew, shared anonymously.

That is feedback about Circles running quietly in the background. The briefing above is an illustrative workflow, and the quotation below is illustrative too.

"I walk into the morning meeting knowing the three things that need me. The rest goes to the people who own it."

Illustrative quotation for this scenario.

Circles is a tool for one person and their own WhatsApp. It reads chats the director is already in and has opened, and nothing else. It does not monitor employees, read staff members' phones or give anyone visibility across an organisation. Teachers and parents keep talking to the director exactly as before.

For a team that shares one business number and answers customers together, a team inbox or the WhatsApp Business API is the better tool. Circles or the WhatsApp Business API.

• Only the chats you open. The director opens the staff, admissions and course groups as read. Everything else stays hidden, and a hidden chat does not exist for the assistant: it is not listed, not searchable and never named.
• Read, or read and send, per chat. A chat opened for reading has no way to send. Sending is a Pro feature, works only in chats you opened for sending, stops at a daily cap (5 messages by default, across all your agents) and is never retried automatically.
• HTTPS in transit. Connections between your browser or AI client and Circles are encrypted with HTTPS.
• A dedicated IP. Your account connects to WhatsApp through its own dedicated IP address, shared with no other Circles customer.
• Revocable at once. Hide a chat or disconnect an assistant, and access ends immediately. Every request an assistant makes, refusals included, is in your activity log.

How Circles handles your chats and linked-device access.

A director with dozens of groups needs Pro: $29 a month (₪99 in Israel) for every chat chosen, full history, and sending in the chats opened for it. If only a handful of groups matter, Starter covers up to 5 chats for $9.90 a month, read only, three months back, and Free covers 2. Everyone starts with 14 days of Pro free, with no card. Compare the plans.

Questions before you start, or while you set up? You talk directly to the team building Circles: mayanc@3peaks.dev.